2007

This technical report describes a cute idea of how to create new policy search approaches. It directly relates to the Natural Actor-Critic methods but allows the derivation of one shot solutions. Future work may include the application to interesting problems.

We introduce a modified Kalman filter that performs robust, real-time outlier detection, without the need for manual parameter tuning by the user. Systems that rely on high quality sensory data (for instance, robotic systems) can be sensitive to data containing outliers. The standard Kalman filter is not robust to outliers, and other variations of the Kalman filter have been proposed to overcome this issue. However, these methods may require manual parameter tuning, use of heuristics or complicated parameter estimation procedures. Our Kalman filter uses a weighted least squares-like approach by introducing weights for each data sample. A data sample with a smaller weight has a weaker contribution when estimating the current time step?s state. Using an incremental variational Expectation-Maximization framework, we learn the weights and system dynamics. We evaluate our Kalman filter algorithm on data from a robotic dog.

2005

The relation between BOLD signal and neural activity is still poorly understood. The Gaussian Linear Model known as GLM is broadly used in many fMRI data analysis for recovering the underlying neural activity. Although GLM has been proved to be a really useful tool for analyzing fMRI data it can not be used for describing the complex biophysical process of neural metabolism. In this technical report we make use of a system of Stochastic Differential Equations that is based on Buxton model [1] for describing the underlying computational principles of hemodynamic process. Based on this SDE we built a Kalman Filter estimator so as to estimate the induced neural signal as well as the blood inflow under physiologic and sensor noise. The performance of Kalman Filter estimator is investigated under different physiologic noise characteristics and measurement frequencies.

Our goal is to understand the principles of Perception, Action and Learning in autonomous systems that successfully interact with complex environments and to use this understanding to design future systems